Method of notifying a wireless subscriber as to call payment responsibilities

ABSTRACT

A method provides that a subscriber can receive calls through a wireless terminal whereby if the calls originate with one number the called party pays and if the calls originate with another number the calling party pays. Information is transferred to the wireless terminal so that a data field normally used to identify the calling party is used to indicate to the called party who has assumed responsibility for payment of the call.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS

This patent application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.09/315,087, filed May 19, 1999 entitled METHOD OF NOTIFYING A WIRELESSSUBSCRIBER AS TO CALL PAYMENT RESPONSIBILITIES, which is incorporatedherein by reference, which is a non-provisional application ofprovisional application 60/113,866 entitled METHOD OF NOTIFYING AWIRELESS SUBSCRIBER AS TO CALL PENDING RESPONSIBILITIES which was filedon Dec. 24, 1998.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention is directed to a method for identifying when asubscriber is responsible for paying for a wireless call. Moreparticularly, in an environment in which a user may subscribe to a“calling party pays” service for wireless communications, the presentinvention provides a technique for notifying the subscriber that areceived wireless call is either a “calling party” pays call or “calledparty pays” call.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Wireless communication, a popular mode of carrying voice and/or datainformation between parties, have enabled subscribers to engage inmobile communications. Historically, the wireless subscriber has assumedresponsibility for paying for all calls involving the wireless terminaldevice. That is, the subscriber pays not only for calls originating fromthe wireless device, but also agrees to pay for all calls directed tothe wireless device. These fees include the air time charges for thewireless device as well as any long distance charges arising from thefact that the wireless device is roaming (i.e., outside of its normalservice region).

Depending on the subscriber's intended use of the wireless phone, it maybe desirable to the user or subscriber to have the option of agreeing topay for receiving calls from some parties while requiring that othercalling parties actually absorb the costs for contacting the subscriberon the wireless communication device.

An example of a system in which a mobile station is serviced isillustrated in block diagram form in FIG. 1. Here, mobile station 10 cancommunicate via over the air signals with a base station (BS) that isassigned to the geographic region in which the mobile station islocated. The base station is coupled to a mobile switching center (MSC)which is coupled to the PSTN, for example, through a local exchangecarrier (LEC). This enables the mobile station to originate a call toanother party such as a user at a wireline phone connected to the PSTN.Alternatively, in the known system, a caller can dial the mobileidentification number (MIN) of the subscriber's wireless terminal. Thatcall is then set up by the wireless service provider. First, controlsignals are transmitted via the Signaling System 7 (SS7) network (shownas the dashed lines) to the Home Location Register (HLR) for thewireless terminal. The HLR includes information about where the terminaldevice was last registered, namely it identifies a serving MSC (S-MSC).The call can then be routed to the S-MSC associated with mobile station10 and a call can be connected to the mobile station via the S-MSC.

In an effort to solve the issue of the called party paying for allcalls, it has been proposed to provide a calling party pays service.This service could rely on a number translation database in much thesame manner that “800” services now operate. Namely, rather than theuser giving a MIN to calling parties, the user would be assigned a “500”number for example and all such 500 number calls would be routed to aspecial servicing database which would correlate or translate the 500number to the wireless terminal's MIN. In turn, the MIN would be used toidentify the S-MSC and the call could be routed to the terminal device.All calls in this service would be paid for by the calling party.

While this may at first seem appealing to a subscriber, there might besome reluctance to subscribe to a service in which the only accessnumber to the mobile terminal invokes the calling patty paysrequirement. The typical subscriber may wish to absorb costs for somecalls while requiring others to pay the costs for remaining calls. The500 number translation arrangement proposed would not address thisconcern.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a technique by which a called party whohas subscribed to a calling party pays service can identify whether thecalled party or the calling party is responsible for paying for a callwhich the terminal station has received. In accordance with anembodiment of the present invention, the terminal station has associatedtherewith two numbers, its MIN and a translation number, such as a “500number”. If a calling party attempts to access the subscriber via directinput of the MIN into the telephone system, then the called party isresponsible for payment of the call. If, however, the calling partyenters the “500 number” which is subsequently translated into the MIN,then the calling party assumes responsibility for paying for the call.In the latter circumstance, the data translation operation and the MSC'soperation for transmitting call data to the mobile terminal operatetogether so as to advise the terminal station device that the receivedcall is coming by way of an input of the “500 number” which indicates tothe subscriber, even before answering the call, that the calling partywill be paying for the received call. This arrangement provides thesubscriber with the flexibility of having some percentage of the callsto their wireless terminal be the payment responsibility of callingparties and at the same time identifies to the wireless subscriberwhether the call originated in such a manner that the calling party hasassumed responsibility for paying for the call.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 provides a schematic view of a prior art system for wirelesscommunications.

FIG. 2 illustrates a schematic view of a mobile terminal which can beused in connection with the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic diagram of a system which employs anembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention provides a technique by which the wirelesssubscriber can gain the benefits of a “calling party pays” service whilestill enabling situations where the subscriber will acceptresponsibility for calls to the wireless device and furthermore allowsthe user to differentiate such calls before answering the call. First,the present invention employs a technique in which the subscriber mobilestation has associated therewith both a calling party pays number, forinstance a 500 number, and its MIN. In this instance, if a calling partygenerates a call to the subscriber utilizing the MIN, then such a callwould be treated as other wireless calls and the subscriber will assumethe responsibility for payment of the call. If, however, the call isoriginated by a calling party utilizing the 500 number, the callingparty will assume responsibility for the telephone call. In thisarrangement then, the subscriber has the flexibility of allowing somepeople to contact them at the called party's expense while others areforced to assume the responsibility for contacting the wirelesssubscriber.

One sample wireless terminal which might be utilized in connection withthe present invention is illustrated in FIG. 2. Here a display screen isillustrated as having two lines, top line 201 and second line 202. Ithas been described in certain wireless communication standards, namelyIS-136, that calling party identification information can be transmittedto the wireless terminal and displayed on the two lines shown in FIG. 2.In the typical implementation of this technique, the S-MSC would extractinformation from the call control signal associated with the call to thewireless subscriber and cause that information to be displayed on thewireless device. That information would include the appropriate callingparty ID information, namely a telephone number, appearing on line 201and some other generic or name identifier which can be displayed on line202. If the “500” number technique for sharing costs of accessing thewireless terminal were employed utilizing such a known wireless device,the subscriber would see on their wireless device an identification ofthe calling party and would not have any idea as to whether the callingparty had assumed responsibility for paying for the call or whether theonus of payment rests on the subscriber. There would be no indication tothe subscriber as to which technique the calling party used to accessthe subscriber's terminal.

The present invention provides the indication that is not provided inthe prior art. In particular, the present invention employs a techniqueby which the calling party identification number information can bealtered so as to identify to the called party whether the call wasoriginated with the MIN or whether the call originated with the 500number. In particular, as illustrated in FIG. 3, a translation database325 can be added to the network illustrated in FIG. 1 and can translatethe 500 number for example, into a MIN and at the same time that thecalling party information is forwarded to the S-MSC, the translationdatabase for a controller associated with that database can substitutefor certain portions of that calling party information the callednumber, namely the 500 number dialed by the calling party. If this 500number is forwarded to the S-MSC, then the S-MSC can construct an IS-136message for the mobile station incorporating the 500 number in place ofsome calling patty identification information which would otherwise bedisplayed on one or more lines of the wireless device. When thisinformation is transmitted to the mobile terminal device and displayedat the time of call set up, before the called party answers, thesubscriber is notified then that the call has originated through thecalling party pays service. The subscriber can then make a decisionwhether to answer or receive the call using a full set of information asto whether the calling party has assumed responsibility for payment ofthe call. If the calling party has agreed to pay and the subscriberanswers the call the calling party is billed for the call.

The technique of the present invention takes advantage of data fieldswhich can be transported to wireless subscribers today and takesadvantage of the translation technique used for implementing servicessuch as 800 services so as to enable the subscriber to set up a callingparty pays service and to have the calling party pays numbers “stuffed”into data fields transmitted to the terminal device. As a result, thesubscriber can identify when the calling party has assumedresponsibility for payment of a call directed to the called party.

The disclosed embodiments are illustrative of the various ways in whichthe present invention may be practiced. Other embodiments can beimplemented by those skilled in the art without departing from thespirit and scope of the present invention.

1. A method of operating a database comprising: receiving calling partyinformation, the calling party information corresponding to an incomingcall and including a number of the calling party; translating a numberof a called party into a mobile identification number (MIN); andmodifying the calling party information by substituting the number ofthe called party for the number of the calling party if the incomingcall is to be billed to the calling party's account.
 2. The method ofclaim 1 further including forwarding the modified calling partyinformation toward a mobile switching center (MSC), the MSC to use themodified calling party information to construct a calling party IDnotification message and route the calling party ID notification messageto a communication device using standard wireless caller ID technology.3. The method of claim 2 further including forwarding the modifiedcalling party information toward the MSC over a call control network. 4.The method of claim 3 wherein the call control network is a SignalingSystem 7 (SS7) network.
 5. The method of claim 1 further includingforwarding the received calling party information toward a mobileswitching center (MSC) if the incoming call is to be billed to thecalled party's account.
 6. The method of claim 1 further includingreceiving the calling party information over a call control network. 7.The method of claim 6 wherein the call control network is a SignalingSystem 7 (SS7) network.